saying of a contemporary writer: 'The bird can
live without man, but man cannot live without
the bird.' A titmouse in one year consumes
more than two hundred thousand microscopic
eggs and larvæ.

"One would believe, Messieurs les Sénateurs,
that grateful man would take under his special
protection such indispensable friends as these;
that he would destroy the winged foes that prey
upon them, as well as the snake which glides up
to the nest to devour the mother with her
young. Alas! no. More cruel than the falcon,
who kills to live, man kills for the pleasure of
killing. The gun is not sufficiently murderous;
it is reserved for more noble game. We, your
melodious useful petitioners, are assailed with
a variety of horrid engines—with nets, nooses,
traps, and birdlime, which crush and torment us
for hours, without killing us outright. We spare
you the details of our sufferings.

"But whilst we thus spare you, we strongly
protest against the sportsmen—magnanimous
heroes!—who, along the coast from Marseilles
to Toulon, slay their two hundred soft-billed
birds per day, in order to display upon a spit a
row of tiny roasted carcases, which, when they
were alive and useful, were little more than
bunches of fluffy feathers. We protest against
the hideous race of bird-catchers, who capture
scores of songsters on the chance that one out
of the number may survive his captivity. We
protest against idle and unfeeling children who
play truant from school, for the sake of plundering
our eggs and stringing them into a useless
and fragile ornament. We protest against cruel
and stupid parents, who look on with indifference
while their boys—and worse, their girls—
are tormenting our progeny and reducing our
race to the verge of extinction. Senators of
France, we beseech you, for your own sakes,
have pity on us! Take us under the protection
of the law.

"Your petitioners are well aware that,
supposing penalties to exist for the destruction of
birds' nests containing eggs or young, police-
officers would shut their eyes or look another
way, if those penalties were heavy; if they
amounted, as has been proposed, to six hundred
and even to two thousand francs. The offence
being commonly committed by children whose
parents are the parties civilly responsible, there
would be an unwillingness to inflict ruin on
fathers and mothers whose only fault is, after
all, the toleration of practices which seem to be
authorised by ancient custom. But, by reducing
the fine to one franc, this light penalty, saddled
with the costs, would act as a paternal warning,
which could not shock the conscience either of
the magistrate, or of the person who took the
culprit in charge.

"Your petitioners are not blind to the
probability that the reforms they propose, will shock
many prejudices, many inveterate habits,
considered rights in certain rural districts. Might
not a little persuasion, therefore, accompany
or even precede coercive measures? Your
petitioners venture to propose that the Ministers
of Agriculture and Public Instruction should
cause to be prepared, for the use of village
schoolmasters, a set of simple clear and
familiar lessons which may usefully employ a few
class hours in every week. Already have several
bishops, with the Cardinal Archbishop of
Bordeaux at their head, taken the initiative in this
economical as well as moral and humane branch
of tuition. It is to be hoped they will be
seconded in this good work by our worthy friends,
the country curés.

"Your petitioners further suggest that, while
good is taught, the teaching of evil should be
refrained from. They protest against pictures of
Paul offering to Virginia a nest of young birds ,
also against statuettes of Damon climbing a
porcelain-tree in order to present a Svres
Phyllis with a brood of callow thrushes which
the mother bird is feeding. The pictured and
the sculptured nests may be exceedingly pretty
objects to look at, but we, your petitioners, ask
what Virginia and Phyllis are going to do with
the nestlings when they have got them? Will
they try to rear them? Ten to one they will
fail. But the chances are, that instead of trying,
they will worry the young birds to death, and
then toss them to the cat: which is not pretty
at all, in your petitioners' opinion.

"Finally, if France holds to the English alliance,
she will refrain from the murder of English
favourites who are travelling direct to England.
That insular people are very prejudiced and
almost superstitious respecting any harm done
to our red-bosomed Chairman's family especially.
We, your petitioners, it may be said,
have a selfish interest in the matter; and we
confess we prefer reaching the north of Europe
by any route, in preference to France. The
grand nation which takes the lead in civilisation,
and also in revolution, will surely put a stop to
such crying injustice and self-injury; when your
petitioners will ever pray."

NEW WORK
BY SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.
NEXT WEEK
Will be continued (to be completed in six months)
A STRANGE STORY,
BY THE
AUTHOR OF "MY NOVEL," " RIENZI," &c. &c.

Now ready, in 3 vols. post 8vo.
SECOND EDITION of
GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.